The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for inputting musical sheet data into a musical-sheet-printing system so as to perform printing of music in accordance with the input musical sheet data.
Generally, musical note data among musical sheet data are very important. Various types of methods have been proposed to enter and process musical note data. A typical example of note data input apparatus is disclosed in EPC Provisional Publication No. 53393. According to this apparatus, the note data is entered together with pitch data and duration data at a function keyboard. When an accidental such as a sharp ".music-sharp." or a flat "b" is required for a given note, the corresponding "accidental" function key is depressed to enter the note data with the corresponding accidental. The pitch and duration data of the note must be entered at the keyboard, which hinders smooth data entry. For example, when a chord such as a triad or the like is played, the respective notes making up the chord must be entered independently.
A musical sheet to be printed is generally handwritten. If the musical sheet data are entered as if an operator is playing the piano, pitch data entry can be performed at high speed. A method for entering the pitch data at a piano-keyboard input unit is disclosed in British Pat. No. 1,337,201. According to this method, musical note data can be smoothly entered with function keys irrespective of chord data entry and single note data entry. An accidental can be easily entered by depressing a corresponding black key of the keyboard. However, this prior art has the following problem. There are two ways notating accidentals on a musical sheet. In particular, any semitone must specify which accidental (sharp or flat) is added thereto. For this reason, smooth keyboard playing (i.e., smooth data input) is interrupted, and data input errors tend to occur.